mmmm menu

One of the items we finalized (basically; of course we can still change it if we want to) at our meeting last week was the menu! Just a fair warning - if you're not hungry now, you might be at the end of this post!

After the ceremony our guests will be greeted with an open bar and a scrumptious hors d'oeuvre station consisting of:

• Baked brie filled with raspberry preserves, wrapped in a puff pastry and baked until golden brown
• Hot baked crab dip with sherry - served warm with french bread rounds
• Warm blue cheese and bacon spread - accompanied by grain and butter crackers
• Hummus trio - served with pita chips
• Seasonal vegetable display - accompanied by herb dip
  

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Are you ready for some more??? We will also have a main buffet consisting of:

• Signature Moser salad - field greens, strawberries, blue cheese, walnuts and Moser Vinaigrette
  
• Marinated and grilled chicken breast slices seasoned with jerk seasonings - served with peach salsa
• Smoked brisket, rubbed with spices and smoked slowly
• Pulled pork - served with apple butter BBQ sauce
• Old fashioned tomato bread pudding - a mixture of tomato, cheese, scallions, bread crumbs and herbs
• Baked garlic cheese grits
• Roasted vegetables
• Cheese biscuits
• Soft yeast rolls
  
• Assortment of fresh fruit - served with sweet cream fruit dip

AND to top it all off, a delectable display of:

• Seven assorted cakes - three white velvet raspberry, two Spanish lemon and two chocolate

You have already heard about the cake many times before. Oh, and my parents even got to enjoy their very own cake tasting this weekend since the future mister picked up a strawberry cake for my birthday. They loved it!

Mmmmm....now I'm in the mood for pulled pork. I hope our guests enjoy what we selected. The future mister and I tried to get a pretty good mix of foods we both enjoy (i.e. baked brie, grilled veggies for me, blue cheese dip and grits for him). Hopefully we get to eat some of the deliciousness on the wedding day!

What are/were some of your favorite items on your menu? Those of you who are already married - were you able to eat any of it on your wedding day?

that's amore...

Even though it hasn't been too much work, our rehearsal dinner venue search has been a bit of a long one (at least compared to most of the other wedding decisions). The future mister and I started looking over the summer. Well, at that point we were certain we wanted to have it at our favorite restaurant. We met with them to discuss logistics only to sadly realize it wasn't in the cards (read: insane prices and no flexibility). Many months have gone by without any decisions being made, so over the holidays we decided it was high time to start searching again. The future mister contacted another restaurant a few weeks ago to find out that they're already booked for our date.

You know how they say that everything happens for a reason, right? So true. This past weekend, my future in-laws were in town to finally nail down a venue. We had dinner set up on Friday night at a quaint Italian restaurant downtown and then Saturday lunch at a local bakery/cafe with the perfect outdoor patio. Friday night's dinner was soooo good and everyone was so impressed, that lunch on Saturday ended up being a mere formality.

Our rehearsal dinner will be taking place at La Dolce Vita. I love this place for so many reasons.

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1. Authentic Italian food - In college, I studied abroad in Italy for four amazing months. Real (as opposed to Americanized) Italian food has a special place in my heart stomach. And the owner of the restaurant is Italian, so big plus there.

2. Intimate setting - Our RD is only for about 30 people, but the restaurant is on the smaller side so we'll be renting the entire space out for the evening. One of the other options we discussed with the owner was putting dividers up...but that still wouldn't give us the privacy we want. Now we can catch up, toast, show our slideshow, etc. all without having to talk over or disturb other restaurant patrons.

3. Family style - Our FIVE course Italian feast will consist of an appetizer, mixed greens and caesar salads, two or three pasta dishes, one or two meat/entree dishes, and one dessert - all served family style. At first, the future mister and I really wanted a plated, served dinner (since the wedding will be a cocktail buffet). But after thinking about it, family style is sooo much better! Now no one has to worry about ordering the wrong dish and/or wanting what someone else has - it's all up for grabs!

4. Menu flexibility - Right now the restaurant is using their Fall/Winter menu, so what we tasted on Friday won't necessarily be what's in season come May. The owner basically said we can do whatever we want. We can choose our menu now, wait until March/April, or even request special dishes. And on the night of the RD he can make special plates for our ring bearer and flower girl, as well as the future mister's grandfather who doesn't like/can't eat dishes with a lot of Italian spices.

I could go on (and on), but you get the drift. How did you choose your rehearsal dinner venue?

breaking tradition

Last night I decided to make black bean soup for dinner. It calls for pureeing black beans and chicken broth in a blender. Our old blender is sadly missing it's lid, so the last time I made this recipe I just used our immersion blender (i.e. the future mister's protein shake maker). Well this time, the immersion blender was dirty and I didn't feel like cleaning it. And, well, why would I take the fifteen seconds required to clean it when I could use our fancy NEW blender?! This thing is amazing and I'm already trying to come up with more reasons to use it (THANK YOU KATIE!).


Now, I have heard the old wives' tale/tradition of waiting until after the wedding to use your shower gifts - just in case the wedding ends up being called off. Call me a bad bride, but I clearly broke tradition with this one. First of all, what if the gift doesn't work? Or is broken? Usually you can only return/exchange things within so many days of purchase. Also, with kitchen appliances it is always a good idea to register the product for warranty purposes.

That being said, did you come up with reasons to use your shower gifts before the wedding? Or did you follow tradition and wait until after?

my Atlanta shower

After a fun-filled Saturday of dress shopping, we topped off the weekend with brunch/my shower on Sunday morning. I picked murphy's in the Virginia Highlands area of Atlanta at the suggestion of a co-worker. I'm pretty sure that we all agreed that the food was delicious.

I really enjoyed how casual and intimate this shower was and, as you can see, my friends were extremely generous (thanks again ladies!). It was great to be able to chat and catch up with everyone, especially since most of them live 8+ hours away. It was also a great precursor to the two other showers I'll be having - one in Pennsylvania (my hometown) and one in North Carolina (the future mister's hometown).

What was your shower like? Did you/will you have more than one, like me?

speaking of cake toppers...

I was reading Weddingbee yesterday and saw this:

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It made me laugh out loud. Now this is a cake topper I think the future mister could relate to. Me - not so much, but I still find it amusing.

cake toppers

Since I seem to be on a roll with wedding accessories/decor inspiration, let's move on to cake toppers.

Le Petit Oiseau
Charming and cute, but pricey

Lollipop Workshop

Super sweet, but also pricey

Bent Branch
Adorable!

Lilly BonBon

Another cute option

Kiki La Ru
I just think these look fun and very rustic/vintage

The toppers above are all very lovely, but my favorite is most definitely this one:

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When I was an itty, bitty girl (about 4) I saw a picture of the most beautiful Barbie in a magazine (probably the Sears Christmas catalog).

Happy Holidays Barbie 1989

I was in love and it went straight to the top of my Christmas list. I was already a huge Barbie fan, but that Christmas started almost 20 years of collecting. I have every single holiday Barbie from 1989 until 2008, in addition to a few others. So, of course, the 1960s (reproduced in 1997) Barbie and Ken wedding ornament is my top pick. I'm not exactly sure how the future mister feels about my preferred pick, which is probably why I haven't made any decisions yet.

What do you think? Should I go with Barbie and Ken or keep looking to find something we both like?

peachy keen

As you all probably know, the future mister and I had some of our engagement photos taken in a peach orchard.

photos by Heidi from Our Labor of Love

Well, FSIL/Bridesmaid Katie sent these peach favor inspiration photos earlier this week. What cute ideas! And a great way to incorporate the future mister's *insane love for peaches.

mini peach pies (source)

peach preserves (source)

My only concern with something like these is that they could be pretty pricey. And to be honest, I was considering cutting favors all together since a majority of our guests will be from out of town and I plan on delivering OOT bags to the hotels. Having one favor per couple or family is always an option.

What did you do/are you doing for favors? Do you think guests expect them?


*I'm not kidding. He could probably eat an entire bushel in one sitting.

cooking light

I know that this is primarily a blog about my wedding planning experience, but last night I made an amazing meal (if I do say so myself), so I just have to share. The future mister LOVED it. Bonus - it was from Cooking Light magazine. Tasty AND healthy.

Walnut and Rosemary Oven-Fried Chicken with Toasted Garlic Escarole


For the chicken, instead of hand chopping the walnuts and rosemary, I just put them in my mini food processor before adding them to the toasted panko break crumbs. Also, if you check out the recipe, you'll see that it calls for placing the chicken on a wire rack set up on top of a baking sheet. Unfortunately I didn't have this, so I just placed it directly on the baking sheet. It turned out perfectly fine, but just a little soggy on the bottom. My biggest tip is to remember to spray the cooking spray directly on the chicken - it will quickly become your favorite cooking secret, I promise! The future mister introduced this to me and ever since our chicken has been baked or grilled to juicy perfection.

With the escarole, I did everything the same, except I subbed in romaine. Delicious, especially if you're a garlic lover.

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with these two recipes. Easy (only 30 minutes!), tasty, healthy, and even fancy enough to serve to guests.

satisfying my sweet tooth

Way back in February, I talked a bit about cake (here and here). Our initial proposal included a 3-tier wedding cake and a 2-tier groom's cake. The price for these two things was astounding! From the beginning I had really preferred the look of a cake buffet anyway, so I brought it up at Tuesday's meeting. Turns out a cake buffet will save us almost $300! So we will have 7 cakes and three different flavors.

Try not to lick your computer screen:

3 White Velvet Raspberry (my FAVORITE - see my surprise birthday post)

2 Spanish Lemon


2 Chocoholic

(source - all photos)

You know, in hindsight, I'm really kicking myself for not agreeing to a second tasting when Epting offered on Tuesday. What was I thinking??! So what if we already knew what we wanted our flavors to be - that doesn't mean we can't try them all again. Silly me. Regardless, I'm super excited to have another decision made! Now I can start looking for a cake topper.

What are your favorite cake flavors?

the dreaded phone call

About two weeks ago I received a phone call from our event coordinator at Epting Events - her husband had accepted a job out of the area and she was leaving the company. Definitely not the kind of phone call you ever want to get when planning a wedding!

Since we were still at about a year out, though, nothing much had been done except for the initial meeting, proposal and deposit. Plus, Epting is known for taking care of its clients. Well today we met with our new coordinator, Wendy, her assistant Abby and even Lee Epting himself. It was a great meeting. We were able to hash out our ideas and pare down the initial proposal. No worries here!

So now that that's settled, I'm going to leave you with some eye candy - my attempt at an "inspiration board." I brought this with me today to show our coordinators, but I had to doctor it a bit for the blog so that my gorgeous, top secret wedding gown isn't seen by the wrong eyes (i.e. the future mister's).

showers

I have some friends who are in the midst of planning showers or attending them. I've never actually been to one, so before I started reading wedding blogs, I was totally clueless. I had no idea that it was common to have a themed bridal shower! So after spending months on the blogosphere, here are some of my favorite "themes":

Tea Party

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I love tea houses because they seem so vintage. Not to mention the cute hats and delicious finger foods (anyone else like cucumber sandwiches??). But I don't actually like tea. Not hot, not iced, not sweet. Except for maybe Snapple Peach Iced Tea.

Around the Clock

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This seems like such fun! And a great way to include all the guests.

Stock the Bar

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One of my friends is having a stock the bar shower. Her husband-to-be works at a liquor store as the wine buyer and she used to work as a bartender. So appropriate!

Wine and Cheese

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Yum! I studied abroad in Italy for a semester, which is where I really learned how to enjoy wine. And in my opinion, nothing goes better with a glass of pinot noir than a slice of aged Parmesan. I'm making myself hungry.

Lingerie/Naughty and Nice

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This one's probably more appropriate for just friends or the bachelorette party.

And my absolute favorite - Recipes!

(I LOVE these - especially the recipe box!! - all from Rifle Paper Co.)

(This is pretty cool too - a customizable cookbook. Add your own recipes, personal photos, etc. - TasteBook)

I really enjoy cooking and trying new recipes. And I think it is such a great idea for a bride-to-be to receive favorite recipes from friends and family. It makes cooking so much more personal!

So tell me - what are your favorite shower ideas? Or what did you do for your shower?

weekend recap & celebration dinner

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend! I was off on Friday, again, but this time it was for a small medical procedure. So I mostly took it easy this weekend. Lots of time on the couch watching movies. The only time I left was on Saturday for a picnic in the park with friends to celebrate the end of another semester. The future mister just completed his first year as a PhD student. Here we are this time last year at his M.A. graduation:

Another year down, four or five more to go. I'm incredibly proud of all that he's accomplished so far. So we're going out tonight to celebrate at our favorite restaurant - Farm 255. We haven't yet lived here for one year, and we've gone to this restaurant for every special occasion - after our engagement, his birthday, end of fall semester, my birthday, parents in town, etcetera, etcetera. Not surprisingly, this place is at the top of our short list for rehearsal dinner locations (more on that later).

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Yum - I can't wait! Is there a particular restaurant that you frequent for special occasions?